philadelphia adventure fun day.

okay, i have to admit that aitor and i did embark on this trip with a less than glowing impression on philadelphia (or, flithadelphia). i mean, we knew that cool stuff was going on and knew some of the cool people doing it, but overall the city seemed a confounding mess to us. well, spending this week in the loving arms of a whole philadelphian family has done much to adjust our opinions.

today, we were treated to a great amount of tourism with julie as our fearless guide. but then, you have to be fearless when your outings usually involve having three offspring in tow (regardless of their naturally pleasant demeanors, of course).



we started our tour in chinatown where we marveled at knick knack and paper cuts in the shops and scratched our heads at the boxes of roach houses julie has become fascinated with. really, i wish i had a picture of the box. it's quite odd. oh, and those chickens up there reminded me of aitor's hallowe'en costume.



after chinatown, we went to redding terminal where we all ate in the market and hazel and i squished pennies. aitor also consumed his very first philly cheese steak, another notch in his food tourism belt. i wonder how it compared to his kentucky hot brown. i also wonder where vegetarians go for food tourism? india? speaking of which, hazel and i got some chana masala and saag paneer which was very yummy, indeed.



we also got to go to the italian market (which reminds me a bit of kensington market). it's a pretty keen place but the day was starting to get drizzly and there is no way that my energy level can keep pace with those of our youthful counterparts. i marvel at julie's abilities. i did have just enough eneery, however, to settle into a raucous evening of party games with a belly full of blood orange gelato.

you know, this town is okay. and so it being enveloped by a family of recent strangers. aitor always used to say that our best friends are strangers. he's pretty clever about such matters.